Labour MPs have admitted defeat in their attempt to remove Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the party after it emerged that lengthy talks between union bosses and deputy leader Tom Watson had failed to find a solution.
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Mr Smith said: “I stand ready to do anything I can to save and serve the party”.
“The union leaders have reached out to Tom and they have suggested a way forward”.
Some officials are on holiday, making it more hard for any joint talks to be held. If Len McCluskey can broker a deal that satisfies everybody, it will be no small feat.
In the past week, there have been suggestions that the Labour leader has had enough.
Corbyn has refused to step down despite facing an overwhelming vote of no confidence by Labour MPs and mass resignations in his shadow cabinet, repeatedly citing his popular support at the party’s grass roots.
Ms Eagle, who has been tipped as a contender in a leadership contest, said: “The country doesn’t have an effective opposition at the moment”.
Trades Union Council is calling on Labour Party members to end their in-fighting and “work together” with leader Jeremy Corbyn.
A spokesman for Watson said the deputy leader had met with Corbyn on Monday and told him he could not continue as leader without the support of his lawmakers.
The former shadow work and pensions secretary has amassed the necessary support among MPs to call a leadership poll – just nine months after Mr Corbyn was elected with 60 per cent support. However, her popularity among Labour parliamentarians isn’t matched by the support she has from party members. “I think that’s very interesting”.
He brushed away claims he only half-heartedly campaigned for European Union membership in the referendum and so contributed to the vote for Brexit – which triggered the current crisis – pointing out that two thirds of Labour voters backed Remain.
Mr Corbyn’s office have obtained a legal opinion which says that he has an automatic right to stand for re-election if challenged, but Labour’s general secretary, Iain McNicol, has also consulted a lawyer and is reputed to have been given the opposite advice.
“Jeremy is not a failure”.
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“It was inclusive language I used which, with hindsight, I would rather not have used”, he said of using the term “friends” to describe Hezbollah and Hamas activists. The long-awaited inquiry by Sir John Chilcot concluded that the United Kingdom under then-Prime Minister Tony Blair made a decision to invade Iraq before all peaceful options had been exhausted, whereas the entire policy on Iraq was based on flawed intelligence and assessments.
